


Prevail

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Traveling Man [29]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 05:42:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10587624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Elizabeth is hanging onto command of Atlantis by fighting tooth and nail. Major Lorne tries to manage her and her stress. She manages him instead.Set Season 2, from just before Trinity to just after Coup D'Etat.





	

Having Caldwell breathing down Elizabeth’s neck is bad enough. She knows that he wants her job, and if he can’t have that, he wants John’s, and for all the complications she’s had with John, John has what it takes to survive Pegasus and the Wraith, and Caldwell does not. He cares more for politics than people.

Elizabeth has always cared more for people than politics. Politics are her weapon to get what she needs for her people.

What Rodney does with Arcturus just about undoes her. Collins is dead. And most of a solar system is gone. Rodney says it was uninhabited, but -

Caldwell is still there. Still watching. Still assessing. Waiting to pounce on any weakness and exploit it.

Elizabeth is so furious she doesn’t know what to do. She’s not much of an athlete, but she’s heard more than one person, soldier and civilian alike, talk about how running is calming. Maybe she’ll go running. Cadman likes to run. She can recommend a route. She can -

“Ma’am?”

Elizabeth is sitting at her desk staring at nothing, seething inside, and Major Lorne appears in the doorway.

So far he’s proven a good 2IC for John, better than Ford, what with him having more experience, but he came over on the _Daedalus_ with Caldwell, and Elizabeth’s not sure she can trust him, and she wants to hate his pretty face, wants to smash it with both fists even though she’s pretty sure at her best she could never really hurt him.

So she swallows down her fury and pastes on a smile. “What can I do for you, Major?”

His gaze is wary, though his expression is professionally neutral, polite. “I was about to ask you the same thing, ma’am. Coffee? Some of Teyla’s tea?”

Elizabeth has heard more than one person opine that Lorne is especially good at managing people - keeping the new Marines in line, maintaining peace between the soldiers and scientists, even appeasing Rodney when he gets into it with Zelenka (she doesn’t even want to _think_ of Rodney right now).

She doesn’t want to be managed. It’s not his job to manage her. It’s her job to manage him, manage all of them. Does he think she’s not up to the task?

“Close the door, Major,” she says, and he obeys, because for all that he’s a senior officer, he still has that discipline in him, and she’s learned to take a certain tone with John and the other soldiers, when they think her judgment is flawed simply because she doesn’t handle a gun like they can.

Lorne stands calmly, neither in parade rest nor at attention, waiting for her to speak. She is fast losing control, and the fact that he’s so calm irritates her.

Elizabeth stands up, crosses the office, pushes him aside, and locks the door. When she turns to him, his eyebrows are raised, and she is pleased. So his calm can be ruffled. Good.

“I don’t know who you think I am,” she spits, “but I’m not one of Rodney’s egotistical scientists or one of your over-enthusiastic Marines who needs to be managed. I’m the leader of this expedition, and -”

“I meant no disrespect, ma’am,” Lorne says. “I know McKay can be trying, and I thought -”

“You thought wrong.”

Lorne ducks his chin, deferential. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that for next time.”

Elizabeth is faintly horrified to realize that she’s turned on by the way he obeys her commands, the subtle cues in her voice. She wonders how much control she has over him, as opposed to John or Caldwell.

The silence has dragged on too long, because finally Lorne says, “Am I dismissed, ma’am?”

Dismissed, not excused.

“No.”

Surprise flares in his eyes, but he makes no move toward the door.

Elizabeth isn’t sure what happens next. One moment she’s headed for her desk, the next she’s got a hand in Lorne’s tac vest and is dragging him with her. She pins him up against the wall, and he gazes down at her in confusion but makes no move to stop her.

She unfastens his tac vest and presses herself against him, and his eyes go wide.

“Ma’am -”

“Shut up.”

He closes his mouth so fast his teeth click.

She realizes what she’s doing, she’s his boss, he’s a soldier and she’s not but she’s his boss, and yes she’s frustrated, but this is insane -

She steps back, points to the door. “Dismissed, Major.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He remembers to buckle his tac vest before he goes.

He must have come straight from the gate to talk to her.

She tries not to think too much about what that means.

*

She does her best to avoid him for the next few days, until the next disaster. John is turning into a monster, Caldwell is making a power play, and the city is out of control.

Elizabeth has just come away from her encounter with John - he could have killed her - and she sees, down a side hallway, Lorne leaning against the wall, eyes squeezed tightly shut, only one hand keeping him upright

.

He lost two men today, in an effort to retrieve a cure for John.

“Major?”

He straightens up so fast she thinks she can hear the bones of his spine snapping into place. “Ma’am.”

She glances over her shoulder, then steps into the hallway, walks past Lorne and further into the shadows. He follows her implicit command, even stands so as to shield her from the gaze of passers-by.

She spots a door mechanism, swipes a hand at it. Nothing happens.

Lorne swipes a hand at the mechanism, and it flares blue and opens. He is, she remembers, a natural gene carrier. He hangs back, lets her lead the way into the room. It’s bare and dusty, still has some cloth covers over what could be furniture or more consoles. It’s dim, lit by a few blue lights hanging from sconces in the corners.

“I’m sorry about your men,” she says.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Have you seen the changes Colonel Caldwell has made?”

Lorne nods, his expression professionally blank but his gaze wary, just like last time. “They’re not necessarily bad -”

“But they’re from Caldwell. If we don’t get John back -”

“We’ll get him back. McKay will figure something out, and if not McKay, then Zelenka or any one of the other brilliant scientists we have on staff.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It’s Atlantis, ma’am.”

Like that explains it all. She wonders if he had the same unwavering faith in the SGC before he shipped out to Pegasus.

“If Colonel Caldwell does take command, will I have your loyalty?” she asks.

“Of course, ma’am.”

His utter lack of hesitation undoes something in her. She says, “I truly am sorry about Stevens and Walker.”

He looks surprised that she knows their names, and hurt flares in her, indignation, but she pushes on. Politics are her weapon to do what she must for her people, and they are her people, so she knows their names.

“Is there anything I can do? For their families.” The _for you_ is unspoken.

He looks uncertain, then. “No, ma’am. Captain London has copies of their wills.” Captain London is the JAG officer for the expedition, a new position created during the IOA’s review.

“Remember the last time we talked, Major?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s my job to manage you, not the other way around.”

“I remember, ma’am.”

Elizabeth steps closer, and he doesn’t move, though he looks confused. He lets her into his space.

“Is there anything _you_ need?”

“No, ma’am, there really isn’t,” he says, and she knows. What he needs is to be needed. It’s why he’s so good at his job, so efficient, so determined to make sure everything on Atlantis runs like a well-oiled machine.

To survive, Atlantis needs John Sheppard.

To live, Atlantis needs Evan Lorne.

“And if there was something I needed,” she says, “something I could trust no one else to give me -”

He ducks his head, wets his lips, and that flash of tongue almost undoes her. “Anything for you, ma’am.”

She really, really likes the way he calls her _ma’am_. She says, “Give me your hand.”

He obeys. She grasps his wrist and guides his hand to her breast. He sucks in a sharp breath.

“Please, Major.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?”

“I am.”

And like that, she’s in his arms. He spins her to him so he’s pressed against her back, and he’s mouthing along her jaw and her throat. She tilts her head to give him better access, grinds her ass back against his hips, and he’s already half-hard.

He still has one hand cupping her breast, his other hand across her hips to pin her in place. He smoothes a thumb over her breast, but there’s too much fabric between her skin and his, and she hums in frustration. She catches his other wrist, drags his hand between her legs.

“Ma’am?”

“Do it.”

He slides his hand off her breast, skates his fingers down her ribs, and then both hands are working her shirt free of her pants. She unbuttons her pants herself, and he’s stroking along her belly, and he’s nuzzling her throat. He’s going to leave a mark, but he’s a soldier, he’s smart, he’ll leave a mark where no one can see. One thumb circles her navel, the other smoothing the skin at her hip just above the waistband at her pants, and she wriggles her hips impatiently.

He slides both hands up her shirt, cupping her breasts over the fabric of her bra, rubbing tentatively, and she arches into his touch, needs more.

He slips his fingers beneath her bra, but the rough calluses on his fingers are a little too much, and he withdraws with a murmured apology, starts to pull away, but she grabs his hand and brings it to her mouth, sucks in two of his fingers, and he gets with the program fast.

Once his fingers are good and wet, he slips his hand back under her shirt - and there’s something thrilling about doing this with most of their clothes on, like two teenagers in the back of a car, desperate and in danger of getting caught - and when his slick fingers circle her nipple she keens in the back of her throat.

She sucks on his other hand, and then he’s working both of her nipples in tandem while he nips along her shoulder, stroking them into stiff peaks, pinching them and rolling them, and heat is pooling between her legs.

He knows when he needs more lubrication, lets her suck on his fingers before going back to play with her.

She moans his name, a plea and a command all in one, arching her hips meaningfully, and he obeys, though he pauses along the way to thumb her navel and stroke her hip before he eases his hand into her panties, stroking through the wiry curls there.

She’s dripping wet, and his fingers slip through her folds easily. He finds her clit with unerring accuracy and teases it with just the tip of his index finger, and she bucks her hips into his hand. He slides his fingers farther, circling her entrance, and he’s thrusting his hips against her ass, rock-hard in his pants.

He’s still fondling one nipple, mouthing along her neck and shoulder, and the multiple sensations are making her dizzy.

“Dammit, Major,” she hisses, and finally, finally, he slides two fingers into her.

Immediately she sets up a rhythm, fucking herself on them, and he obliges her, rocking his hips with her to help set the rhythm, and he’s thumbing her clit at the same time as he’s thumbing her nipples - he’s switching back and forth between her breasts, how the hell does he have that dexterity? - and she thrusts faster, thrusts harder, and he thrusts with her, scissors his fingers, and she comes, but he doesn’t stop.

He slides a third finger into her, using her wetness to slick the way, thumb veritably fluttering over her clit like a hummingbird’s wing. She fucks herself harder onto his hand, and she comes again, and he curls his fingers against her g-spot, and she comes _again_ , and she feels his hips stutter, feels the warmth of his orgasm spread between them, and she comes yet again. His hands slip out of her clothes, grasp her hips to keep her upright, and it’s over.

It takes them both a moment to catch their breath. He hands her a tissue to clean up, turns away to unfasten his pants and clean himself up. He’s glancing back at her, dazed, and he doesn’t say a thing. Lets her leave first.

Will wait a few minutes, so she has a head start, so it doesn’t look like they were together. He’s smart like that. Someone needs to be smart in all this.

It was a damn stupid thing to do, but Elizabeth thinks it was damn fun.

So she does it again.

*

She needs a clear head when things are stressful, needs to burn off tension, and Lorne is willing to oblige.

It takes them a bit to establish a rhythm of how to handle things after their encounter. There’s that awkward moment when John and his team have failed to meet their check-in deadline and Lorne implies that Elizabeth is a mother hen when it comes to her teams, but he catches the warning look in her eyes and takes his team out for SAR.

And then they discover there’s a Goa’uld on Atlantis and there’s a bomb planted somewhere in the city and they don’t know who to trust, and Elizabeth orders Lorne into an unused lab, allegedly to discuss security protocols (because she still doesn’t trust Caldwell after what he tried to pull when John was incapacitated during the Iratus incident). He follows, wearing his grim, concerned expression like he does during a crisis, but as soon as the door closes he thinks it locked and when she orders him to his knees he sinks down without hesitation.

She drags a chair over, wriggles out of her pants, sits down, slides her legs up over his shoulders, and demands his mouth.

He obliges her with enthusiasm. She always knew his smart mouth could be put to better use. He brings her off swift and sure, at least three times, and then it’s time for them to handle the crisis.

That Caldwell was the Goa’uld came out of left field, but it justifies Elizabeth’s distrust of him, and he accepts her caution with surprising humility.

Because it’s Atlantis, there’s a crisis seemingly every week (Rodney sunk in a jumper, an outbreak of Pegasus chicken-pox, John held hostage off-world, a malfunction in the desalination lines that leads to sudden drought citywide), and Lorne is always there to help her handle it. The way he obeys her commands without question is a ridiculous turn-on. He’ll do anything she asks, will jerk himself off for her, will finger himself for her, will get himself hard and lie back on her bed and let her ride him and not come till she tells him to.

Lorne is the perfect choice to fill this need for her. He’s polite, he’s discreet, and he’s not John or Rodney or Carson or anyone else she has tangled working relationships with. Lorne is Lorne - steady, dependable, loyal.

John finally seems to have accepted Lorne as a 2IC and not just the man whose presence means Ford is never coming back.

And then Elizabeth learns that she can hurt Lorne, that her body is capable of it, with Phoebus inside her.

For the first time, she goes to his quarters. She has to wait till long after both their shifts have ended, after she has been released from the infirmary.

Lorne is awake, barefoot and wearing USAF sweats and a t-shirt.

“Ma’am,” he says, and she wonders if he knows her first name, except of course he does, because he’s Lorne.

“Major, I just wanted to check on you and - apologize. If I may?”

Lorne nods and steps back, lets her into his room. It’s scrupulously neat, spartan, save for a section of wall decorated with photos of people she doesn’t recognizes but places she does - the hills of Van Nuys, the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s a notebook open on Lorne’s bed, pencils scattered across the comforter. No, not a notebook - a sketchbook.

He flips it closed and sets it on his little desk, gathers up the pencils and smooths the comforter. Elizabeth sits on the edge of his bed, and he puts the pencils away before he pulls up his little desk chair to sit opposite her.

She studies him. “How are you?”

“Beckett gave me a clean bill of health,” he says. “Nothing I’ve never encountered before during combat.” He smiles ruefully, rubs his neck. She remembers, fuzzily, punching him in the throat.

His voice is a little hoarse, now that she thinks about it.

“Are _you_ all right? It can’t have been easy, having that happen to you.” He searches her gaze, earnestly concerned.

This is her fault. She should have been more cautious. She could have killed John, and now she’s in the same place Caldwell is power-wise, trust-wise, and she’s brought John low with her. She should say she is fine, but she can’t bring herself to.

“I’m fine,” he assures her. “What do you need?”

Let him have the illusion of managing her. She’s managing him.

“I need you,” she says, “to forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he says, and she silences him with a kiss.

This is, she realizes, the first time they have kissed. She lets him tumble her onto the bed, lets him kiss her and undress her slowly and worship her body with his mouth and hands, lets him bring her off before he settles himself on top of her and slides into her. She buries her face in his throat and knows this is a terrible parody of them being lovers, but he needs to feel like he’s reassuring her, and she isn’t going to turn down a good romp in the hay, not when it settles her nerves and brings him back in line and will help her make sure she’s back walking that fine line with sure feet.

Lorne is a very skilled lover. His previous partners were lucky to have his attention. He is strong and flexible, and he manages to make her come twice more while he’s thrusting into her, one hand between them and stroking her, bent over her and lavishing attention on her breasts with his tongue and lips, all the while filling her with repeatedly with his hot, thick cock.

Finally he reaches his own orgasm, and then he sinks onto her, trying to keep the full brunt of his weight off of her with shaking arms, but she pulls him down onto her, revels in his weight, hips twitching in the aftershocks. Eventually he pulls out and lays beside her.

They both doze, but neither are so incautious that they let themselves fall asleep, because she needs to be back in her quarters to get ready before her shift starts.

He stirs first, slips out of the sheets and heads over to the bathroom to find a warm washcloth to clean them both up. He brings her clothes to her, and then he goes to get into the shower, to wash off the scent of sex before he goes running with his teammates.

So careful, so punctilious.

It’s why he’s so perfect for this arrangement.

Elizabeth dresses, and then she takes the time to study his room. He’s been to hers before, because all it took was one close call in a supposedly abandoned corridor to make them more cautious. She goes to look at the photos tacked to the wall beside his desk. His family, she thinks. Three women and two children, all with the same dark hair. The women all have blue eyes like him. The children do not, but one of them has the same dimples.

She is surprised by the sketchbook, and she flips it open, curious.

She doesn’t know why she’s surprised at how good Lorne is, because he’s good at everything he does, but the way his sketches are so detailed, so lifelike, could come off the page at any moment takes her breath away.

There are pictures of what she surmises are alien planets, SGC personnel - comrades he left behind on Earth, most likely. There are studies of places around Atlantis - that stained glass window, the circular ceiling of the database room, the gate room. There are more alien planets, plants and animals and geological formations, skies with multiple suns and moons. And there are people - his teammates past and present, Ronon, Teyla, John, Rodney, Zelenka, Cadman, Beckett, Heightmeyer, just about everyone on the Expedition features at least once.

And there are pictures of her. Standing on the balcony above the gate room, at that spot where she waits for teams to return. Sitting in her office. In the mess hall. In the conference room. Standing on one of the exterior balconies, overlooking the sea, a breeze ruffling her hair.

After a point, all of the pictures are of her, studies of just her eyes, her hands, her mouth and jaw and the side of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, the line of her back and hips as she walks away.

And Elizabeth realizes. She closes the sketchbook and lets it fall back to the desk.

She turns to go, and Lorne is standing in the doorway of the bathroom, toweling his hair vigorously. His smile fades when he sees the sketchbook, and his hands still.

Elizabeth stares at him. “You’re in love with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The simple declaration makes her chest tighten. “You’re not even going to try to hide it?”

“No, ma’am. Not from you.”

“But - you know I don’t love you.” Of course he knows. She’s perfectly sure of that fact till the moment the words spill out of her mouth, but his expression - wistful - doesn’t change.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This - between us. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“I know, ma’am.”

And he _does_ know. This whole time, she was sure she was managing him, that he was the oblivious one, the naive one, but he’s known since that first time - probably since that first conversation in her office, where nothing actually happened between them.

“Why do you let me -?” _Use you_. She’s using him. She’s a monster.

He shrugs. “It’s what you need.”

“But what about what you need?”

He shrugs again. “It’s not about me.”

And there it is, that unflappable, unassailable poise of his, that irritated her at first. It never went away. She wants to shake him.

“It’s about Atlantis, then?”

“You’re a person, Elizabeth,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s ever said her name. “Yes, you command Atlantis, but you’re separate from the city, from your job. You need this, and I can give it to you.”

“And you don’t want anything in return?”

“I have been experiencing spectacular orgasms with a beautiful woman,” he says mildly.

 _Emotional_ , she means, but she can’t bring herself to say it. “Everyone has an angle,” she says finally, and there it is, the crack in his shell, and beneath it, hurt.

“Mine is simple,” he says finally. “I love you, and I want to do nice things for you. You aren’t required to do anything back. That’s not how love works.”

Elizabeth starts for the door. “We’re done, Major Lorne.” With this encounter. With everything.

He says, “Yes, ma’am.”

She’s gone before she can give in to the urge to look back.

*

She avoids him as much as she can over the next several days, but she knows it’s unnecessary, because when she cannot avoid an encounter with him, he’s as professional as always - respectful, polite, even friendly and joking when the situation calls for it (but not too personal, never too personal, not since that first stumble).

She doesn’t love him back, but she does feel guilty for stringing him along even though he was apparently more aware of the situation than she was and wasn’t being led to believe anything that wasn’t true about how she did or didn’t feel for him.

Elizabeth has become something she cannot recognize in her desperation to hang onto this precarious position Atlantis occupies, both front line in Earth’s defense against the Wraith and dumping ground for the SGC misfits, ally and legend among the Pegasus planets.

And then Dr. Lindsey returns from her regular offworld visit to a primitive, poor planet alone, and she bears news that makes Elizabeth falter: Lorne and his entire team are missing. It’s not the first time a team has lost contact with the expedition, and it’s not the first time a team has missed a check-in, but something lodges itself behind Elizabeth’s breastbone and it hurts to breathe.

Protocol is simple: another team goes to investigate. John goes, because John Sheppard is loyal, leaves no man behind. It’s what got him sent to Atlantis, and what made him the military commander of Atlantis.

He returns with news Elizabeth never expected to hear: Lorne and his entire team are dead.

Elizabeth doesn’t have time to panic, because before she can really process that information (John’s holding Lorne’s dog tags), there’s an unscheduled offworld activation, and Ladon Radim of the Genii wants to cut a deal for a ZPM.

Elizabeth’s mind is spinning. Lorne is dead. At least some of the Genii still know Atlantis exists. Ladon wants to stage a coup against Cowan. Cowan and the Genii are technically Atlantis’s allies.

Elizabeth pushes Lorne aside and focuses on the task at hand. Ladon wants to trade a ZPM for help with his coup.

This is what Elizabeth does best. She negotiates, she trades, she barters. When she’s a mediator for other parties, she tries to help all parties maximize their outcome. When she’s negotiating on behalf of Atlantis and its people, there are no holds barred. She will take all she can get and to hell with what the other side wants. The other side is usually more tractable if they feel like they’re also benefiting from the bargain, but Elizabeth doesn’t want Ladon tractable, she wants his ZPM and his head on a platter, because Lorne is _dead_ , and Elizabeth is furious. Hurt. Afraid.

When she discusses the issue with the rest of senior command - John and Rodney - John brings up what Elizabeth wants to bring up. Focus on what happened to Lorne and his team.

But a ZPM is vital to Atlantis. Military personnel are, ultimately, expendable. Elizabeth is in charge because she has to make the hard decisions, like sacrificing some of her people at the expense of others. It’s the type of decision a military officer would have to make, that John makes on a regular basis. That Lorne makes. That he made when he lost Walker and Stevens. Lorne and his team are five men. The ZPM will sustain hundreds.

Besides, Lorne and his team are already dead. Finding out what happened to them is less vital than dealing with Ladon.

Elizabeth tells herself that a thousand times, chanting it in her mind as she issues instructions to John. She tells him to work with Ladon, check out his story, that Teyla and Ronon will handle the ongoing investigation into the deaths of Lorne and his team. John isn’t happy about it, but he accepts it. She made the right decision. She is in control. She is handling things as she ought.

Atlantis will prevail.

John departs, Ronon and Teyla and Rodney on his heels, and Elizabeth sits in the empty conference room, numb.

Lorne is dead.

She sees nothing, feels nothing, only hears the roar of her pulse in her ears as she tries to comprehend what that really means.

She’ll never see Lorne again, never see his blue eyes or his dimpled smile, sense his steady presence in a corner of the conference room, never walk through the halls of Atlantis secure in the knowledge that he cares for her, that he will ensure all her needs are met.

The only person in the universe who loves her is _gone_.

Elizabeth’s eyes burn, and she blinks furiously, and then Carson summons her over the radio. She needs to come to the infirmary immediately. There’s something she needs to see.

Evan Lorne’s charred remains are not something she ever needs to see, but no one knows what was between them, and even though he is dead she can never let them know, cannot let his memory be tarnished, so she forces herself to stand up and head to the transporter. She steps through the infirmary doorway and accepts the mask a nurse gives her. She doesn’t know how she made it across the room.

She looked at the five body bags on gurneys and time stopped.

But then she is standing beside Carson looking down at _oh, God, Evan_ and then Carson’s words pierce the haze that has descended over her.

It’s not Evan. None of them are Evan or his team.

Elizabeth stammers something about dog tags, but Carson’s run the DNA. It’s not them.

“So they may be alive,” Elizabeth says. The knot behind her breastbone loosens a fraction.

Now Teyla and Ronon’s investigation is more urgent. It may well be search and rescue. Elizabeth’s mind kicks into high gear, spins in a new direction. What would anyone want with Lorne and his team?

No one on Atlantis knows what Elizabeth has - had - with Lorne, but his absence, this charade, this fraud feels personal. Lorne and his team may be alive, but whoever took them rendered them vulnerable enough to deprive them of their uniforms and dog tags. Whoever took them wants Atlantis to think they were dead. Whoever took them wants to keep them.

That’s unacceptable.

But Elizabeth must deal with Ladon.

She must trust Teyla and Ronon to handle Lorne and his team, and she and John must deal with Ladon.

*

The moment when John and his men step through the gate, Elizabeth’s heart stops, because Lorne and his entire team are with them.

He catches her gaze just for a second, but then he looks away quickly, and for one moment her heart was soaring, and now it is breaking.

She broke his heart. She did this to him. She -

She must deal with Ladon. They have words, a new alliance is formed, and Ladon returns to his own planet. John and everyone who was captured with him are ordered to the infirmary, where Carson is already clucking like an unhappy mother hen over the radios.

Elizabeth goes back to her office. She has reports to write and more paperwork to fill out, and she needs to restructure the political map she keeps in one of her journals, about allies, their assets and weaknesses. It’s cold and calculating, to break down peoples and cultures and entire planets into lists of pros and cons, but if something were to happen to her tomorrow, whoever steps into her shoes in the middle of her web needs to understand the strength of each strand.

There is only so much paperwork she can handle, and she cannot remember when she last ate or slept, but -

She taps her radio. “Carson, how is everyone?”

“None the worse for wear. Major Lorne and his team were a little dehydrated, but otherwise everyone is fine. I’ve discharged them all,” he says.

“Glad to hear it. Good work, Carson.”

“And to you, Elizabeth.”

She ends the connection and folds her arms on her desk, stares into nothing, numb inside. She wants to cry. But she can’t, not here, not in her office, where someone could see or walk in on her or will need a question answered before she can get herself together. She heaves herself to her feet and heads for the transporter. She needs to get back to her quarters. She tugs off her radio while she’s in the transporter, and when she steps out, she pauses.

She’s not in the corridor outside senior command living quarters. She’s in the military residential atrium. She wants to go to her room and cry herself to sleep, but her body knows what she needs better than her mind and battered heart do. No one is around, but she doesn’t dare waste time. She hurried to Lorne’s door and knocks on it.

“Come in,” he calls, and the door slides open.

Elizabeth steps inside, and it hisses shut behind her.

Lorne has his feet kicked up on his desk and his sketchbook open on his lap, is wielding a pencil with calm ease. “What’s up?” He looks up from his drawing, and his eyes go wide. He’s on his feet. “Ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I wondered why they took our dog tags. Thought it might be for a ransom demand.” Lorne presses a hand to his chest; his dog tags are hidden beneath his shirt. “Felt a little like a cheating husband without them - you know, like I’d taken off my wedding ring.” He tries to smile, falters. “Ma’am?”

Elizabeth cannot begin to guess what he sees on her face - fear, exhaustion, worry, regret, anger, relief, terror? She isn’t sure what is roiling beneath her skin, but she steps closer to him. “Evan?”

His eyes widen further. “Ma’am, are you all right? Should I call for Beckett? Or - Kate?” He reaches for his radio.

That he calls Heightmeyer by her first name undoes something in Elizabeth, a flash of hot jealousy, and she’s across his quarters in an instant, yanking him into a kiss.

He makes a muffled sound of surprise, but he submits to her easily, as he always does, parting his lips and allowing her to taste him, sliding his arms around her and holding her close, and she realizes. Every time he did this, every submission, every invitation, he wasn’t buckling to the force of her authority, to the inherent command in her presence and her tone, he was telling her he loves her.

He is the only person in the universe who loves her, and she thought he was gone, but now he is right here.

She pulls back, tugs him toward the bed, kicking off her shoes, and he follows willingly; he is always willing for her. He obeys her wordless commands as she pushes him down to the mattress, and he lies back, prepared to let her direct him, but she curls against his side and nuzzles under his chin and holds on. She can hear the steady beat of his heart, feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

“Ma’am, are you all right?”

“Elizabeth,” she whispers. “Call me Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth, are you all right?”

“You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

Evan asks her another question, but she is falling asleep.

*

When Elizabeth wakes, she is in her own bed. She is confused. Was last night all a dream? Only there was a folded piece of paper on the pillow beside hers, and when she unfolds it, she recognizes Evan’s neat print immediately.

_Hope you slept well. Let me know if there’s anything else you need._

He didn’t sign it, which is wise. Had he carried her all the way back to her quarters? Without anyone else noticing?

She didn’t tell him she loves him, last night. Does he understand that she loves him back, that she wants something more than they had before? Or does he think that last night was a one-time event?

She frets about it all through her shower and breakfast and morning briefings, and she does not know how to go about finding the answer. Asking him, of course, is obvious. But how? Summon him to her office, like she’s the principal and he’s a misbehaving student? She’s sitting at her desk, staring at nothing and thinking, when a voice interrupts her thoughts.

“Ma’am?”

It’s Evan. “What can I do for you, Major?”

He smiles tentatively at her. “I was about to ask you the same thing, ma’am. Coffee? Some of Teyla’s tea?”

More coffee would be good right now; Elizabeth’s mug is empty. Instead she says, “Close the door, Major.”

He obeys, comes to stand in front of her desk.

She rises and circles around her desk to stand in front of him. “I’m sorry,” she says.

He tilts his head, puzzled. “For what?”

“For pushing you away, when you were honest with me about how you felt. About me.”

“Feel,” he says. “Feel about you.”

Elizabeth is pathetically relieved. “I promise this isn’t pity or sympathy in the aftermath of you being kidnapped. But believing you were dead - I realized how I feel. About you. And I’m sorry for using you like I was.”

He shrugs one shoulder but doesn’t deny that she was using him. “You never lied to me about how things stood between us.”

“I want to start over,” Elizabeth says, “with us on equal footing. Can we do that?”

The hope in his eyes is terribly fragile. “What do you mean?”

She takes a deep breath. “I mean I love you, and I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?” She’s known more than one man who likes the chase, who grows bored when the pursuit is ended.

But he steps close and pulls her into a hug and says, “Yes. I do.”

That hug is more intimate than any other moment they had together, than any skin on skin and cries of pleasure rising to the sky. Elizabeth burrows into his embrace and weeps with relief, and he holds her, and she knows that whatever this universe throws at her, she will prevail, because she is not alone.


End file.
